As Clinton scandals continue to mount and her credibility plummets, gleeful Republicans are quietly discussing what once seemed impossible: Hillary Clinton might not survive primary season, let alone make it all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue.
That may well turn out to be the case. But its not because of the allegations about Clinton cash or deleted emails. Those are major political scandals, to be sure, but of a kind that a shameless Bill Clinton skated through easily during his own administration.
The deeper problem is personal. As the veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum put it to me, rather forlornly, in an interview for my book, Clinton, Inc., Hillary Clinton simply isnt a very good candidate. Ive seen her and him in rooms, and she doesnt have the whirr, said Shrum, who worked on the failed Al Gore and John Kerry campaigns. Your eyes arent constantly drawn to her the way they are to him.
To the contrary, ones eyes are drawn away. The Hillary campaign is like a movie you decide halfway through that you didnt really want to see in the first place.
As a candidate, she is the Democrats Frankenstein creaturea patched-together amalgam of all the worst traits of recent presidential campaigns and virtually none of their more winning attributes. Examples abound.
John Kerrys flip-flopping. In the 2004 presidential race, Kerry became a laughingstock for flip-flopping on his support for the Iraq war. Not long after Clinton entered the 2016 presidential race, she quickly began to disavow her previous policy positions. She now believes same-sex marriage is a constitutional right (just last year it was a states rights issue). That the economy has stalled-out (last year she was praising Americas comeback). And she now believes that illegal immigrants should have drivers licenses. Which is something she was for in the 2008 election, before she was against it.
Barack Obamas arrogance. There is, however, at least one issue Clinton has steadfastly refused to flip-flop on: She will continue to accept cash from K Street lobbyists. Why? Its not just that its a position near and dear to her heart; its that Clinton is arrogant enough to believe the money is worth the cognitive dissonance it creates with her newly minted populism.
Last go around, Obama successfully made an issue of coziness with lobbyists. He even went so far as to forswear money from them. But on this issue Clinton is determined to shove it in the face of the Democratic basethe very people shes counting on to vote for her in droves and those who found Obama most appealing.
Like Obama, shes arrogant enough to believe the rules of the past dont apply to her.
Mitt Romneys wealth. The good fortune of being an extraordinarily wealthy man dogged Mitt Romney throughout the 2012 presidential race. And he seemed uncomfortable and unable to speak about it. Worse, perhaps, was the out-of-touch caricature painted of him. He was the man who built an elevator for his cars in a vacation home. He was the man who got rich by firing peopleand who claimed to enjoy it.
The Clintons left the White House dead broke, as Hillary inartfully put it in an interview last year. While it was a rare truthful statement from Clintonthe perfect Washington gaffeit exposed a different problem: Shes now filthy rich and unable to talk about it in a way the average voter can relate to. Since leaving the White House the Clintons have made at least $136 million. And thats just the amount theyve disclosed.
Joe Bidens gaffes. The vice president has attracted considerable attention with his chronic verbal awkwardness. For instance, when speaking to a mostly black audience in the 2012 election, he delivered this stark warning: Theyre going to put yall back in chains. Similar examples abound.
Clinton, too, has a bad way with words. In testimony meant to defend her State Departments actions on Benghazi, Clinton yelled, Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided theyd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, what difference does it make?
A rare moment of excitement, the outburst garnered a lot of publicityfor all the wrong reasons. Clintons words made it look as if she did not care about the four Americans murdered by terrorists in the attack. It surely helps explain her inclination in this presidential race not to talk to the media at allshe still has not agreed to an interview with the press.
Al Gores personality. Despite the aforementioned newsworthy outburst, she is a complete bore as a politician. Perhaps not personally, and certainly not in her personal life, but in speechmaking and in retail politicking, shes stiff as a brick.
Indeed, her 2016 campaign events so far have been things of beautyhigh stagecraft, zero spontaneity. Even the so-called Everyday Americans shes deigned to meet have been plants installed by her presidential campaign.
It is all reminiscent of someone else. The wooden jokes about Al Gore were just reaching their peak in 1994 when two aides, wearing hard hats and jumpsuits, loaded the vice president onto a dolly and wheeled him onstage at the annual Gridiron Club dinner. As they propped him up next to the lectern and the emcee signed for him, the crowd at the Fourth Estates annual talent show convulsed in laughter, the liberal web magazine Salon reported in the 1990s. A perfectly rigid Gore just stood there, barely blinkingfor nearly a minute.
That joke would work perfectly for Hillary at the 2017 White House Correspondents Dinner.
Richard Nixons paranoia and tactics. Perhaps the most problematic parallel for Hillary Clinton is her Nixonian aspect. This is a woman so paranoid about her private dealings being, well, private that she put together a private homebrew server to store her personal and work emails. And when Congress realized what she was up toafter a Republican-led committee was established to figure out what actually happened in the 2012 Benghazi terror attackshe wiped the email server clean.
Nixon famously turned over the damning Watergate tapes (minus a mysterious 18-and-a-half-minute gap) to inquiring authorities. Hillary, who in fact first came to Washington to help Congress investigate that Republican president, took no such risk and just deleted all the extant files.
But its not just the actions. Its also her paranoiathe concern that everyone is out to get herthat Clinton has to figure out how to deal with.
Despite her problems, its worth stipulating that Hillary Rodham Clinton remains the prohibitive favorite to win the next presidential election. Yes, its true. Shes a proven fighter. Shell appeal to a large segment of the American voting population thats anxious to make history by electing the first woman president of the United States. She will likely raise more money than all her challengersthats something shes exceptionally good atand have a -billion-dollar war chest by the time the Republicans (who by then will be dead broke) even figure out who their nominee will be. And shes at the helm of one of the most formidable political machines ever built. One thats only growing stronger.
This is the mystery Republicans need to solve: how a political Frankenstein creature can combine so many negative traits and still position herself well to be the next president.
Daniel Halper, author of the bestselling Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine (Broadside Books), is online editor of The Weekly Standard.